An extensive literature review identified that existing standards from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) address the accessibility needs of older web users. This page introduces how to use Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 to improve the accessibility and usability of websites and web applications for older people.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 includes organizing principles and guidelines, and has success criteria at three levels: A, AA, AAA. WAI recommends meeting at least all WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria.

A related document provides techniques that include specific details on meeting the success criteria, such as code examples. WAI encourages developers to use the How to Meet WCAG 2.0 quick reference to access the guidelines, success criteria, and techniques, along with the additional descriptions, examples, and resources from “Understanding WCAG 2.0”.

This section explains how many of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 guidelines and success criteria specifically meet the needs of older web users. Although not all the WCAG 2.0 success criteria are listed here, WAI recommends meeting at least all WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria. Some of the Level AAA success criteria that are particularly important for older people are listed in this section too.

When implementing WCAG 2.0, developers can use different techniques to meet the success criteria. In some cases, using one technique instead of another can optimize accessibility for certain users. This section lists some of the techniques that can help optimize websites for older people. (Many of the techniques link to additional information; those with "(future link)" will be written up with later edits to the WCAG Techniques.)

This section is organized under the four principles of web accessibility from WCAG 2.0: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Success criteria are listed thematically, to help readability. Sometimes they are drawn from different guidelines to address a particular aspect.

Older people with declining eyesight may not be able to discern the characters in a CAPTCHA, especially because CAPTCHAs often have low contrast and do not increase in size when users have text sized larger.
CAPTCHA stands for 'Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart'. An example of CAPTCHA is: